|

The PSN downtime is costing Capcom "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue" according to senior vice president Christian Svensson.

The data theft hack that forced Sony to pull the PlayStation Network has already gone on longer than expected, and each day means potentially missed revenue for developers and publishers. Capcom senior vice president Christian Svensson outlined just how deep those cuts might be in a recent Q&A.

"As an executive responsible for running a business, the resulting outage obviously costing us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue that were planned for within our budget," Svensson said. "These are funds we rely on to bring new games to market for our fans.

"In short, the hackers appear to be trying to 'punish' Sony for some perceived injustice, and they've been effective in that I suppose. But they're also punishing millions of other consumers and businesses which makes it impossible to be sympathetic to their 'cause'."

Full restoration of PlayStation Network services, including the store, is expected by May 31 -- but at that point the downtime will have lasted over a month. When the network had only been down a few days, Sony promised extra promotion to studios that were set to release games during the outage. But as that downtime edges closer to a full month, even the extra promotion could get overcrowded as a glut of missed releases may hit simultaneously.

Sony Europe has already outlined its own Welcome Back program, which will include a choice of two PS3 games out of five, and two PSP games out of four. It's unknown, at this time, if these will all be first-party Sony titles, or how Sony may compensate the publishers of the free games.

Shacknews has reached out to several developers for their own word on the potential cost of the downtime, but as of the time of publishing, none have responded.

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

Steve Watts' youthful memories are are a blur of pixels, princesses, castles, and Mega Busters. After writing about games as a pastime for years, he got his first shot at a paid gig at 1UP. He's freelanced for several sites since then, and found a friendly home at Shacknews. His editorial duties include news, reviews, features, and lunatic ravings. He lives in the Baltimore-Washington area with his shockingly understanding wife.